
V^I^I^^E® I?"IR<S)IM1 



rHECOTTON BOLL 




■OrriCIA.L. SOUVENIR 

the woman's OI^RAR^MI^INI'ir e^^^^? 

OUTHGAROUNAINTERSKTE 
■^WEST INDIAN EXPOSITION 




COPYRIGHTED Caurtesy of tie B. F. JOHNSON 

PUBLISHING COMPANY, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 

Copyright — ipoi — iy S. E. Wells 



TVIE LiSRARY Or 
OONGRESS, 

Two Oor-tES ReOE(VEt> 

DEC. y 1901 

CLhSS ^XXc >i - 
\ C®PV J. 



Printed by the SOUTHGATE Department of 
THE STILLINGS PRESS, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



VERSES 

fr m the 

COTTON BOLL 

by 
HENRY TIMROD 




THE COTTON BOLL 



WHILE I recline 
At ease beneath 
This immemorial pine, 
Small sphere ! 

(By dusky fingers brought this morning here 
And shown with boastful smiles), 
I turn thy cloven sheath, 
Through which the soft white fibres peer, 
That, with their gossamer bands. 
Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands. 
And slowly, thread by thread. 
Draw forth the folded strands. 
Than which the trembling line, 
By whose frail help yon startled spider fled 
Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed. 
Is scarce more fine; 
And as the tangled skein 
Unravels in my hands, 
Betwixt me and the noonday light 
A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles 
The landscape broadens on my sight. 
As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell 
Like that which, in the ocean shell. 
With mystic sound 

Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round. 
And turns some city lane 
Into the restless main. 
With all his capes and isles ! 



HA 



THE COTTON BOI.'L — Coniinued 



YONDER bird, 
Which floats, as if at rest, 
In those blue tracts above the thunder, where 
No vapors cloud the stainless air, 
And never sound is heard, 
Unless at such rare time 
When, from the City of the Blest, 
Rings down some golden chime. 
Sees not from his high place 
So vast a cirque of summer space 
As widens round me in one mighty field. 
Which, rimmed by seas and sands. 
Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams 
Of gray Atlantic dawns ; 

And, broad as realms made up of many lands. 
Is lost afar 

Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns 
Of sunset, among plains vtrhich roll their streams 
Against the Evening Star! 
And lo! 

To the remotest point of sight. 
Although I gaze upon no waste of snow, 
The endless field is white ; 
And the whole landscape glows, 
For many a shining league away. 
With such accumulated light 
As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day ! 



f^S 







THE COTTON BO 1.1. — Continued 



NOR lack there (for the vision grows, 
And the small charm within my hands, — 
More potent even than the fabled one, 
Which oped whatever golden mystery 
Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale. 
The curious ointment of the Arabian tale — 
Beyond all mortal sense 
Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see, 
Beneath its simple influence, 
As if, with Uriel's crown, 
I stood in some great temple of the Sun, 
And looked, as Uriel, down!) 
Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green 
With all the common gifts of God, 
For temperate airs and torrid sheen 
■Weave Edens of the sod; 
Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold 
Broad rivers wind their devious ways; 
A hundred isles in their embraces fold 
A hundred luminous bays; 
And through yon purple haze 
Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks 

cloud-crowned ; 
And, save where up their sides the ploughman 

creeps, 
An unhewn forest girds them grandly round, 
In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps ! 



THE COTTON BOI.'L — Continued 



YE Stars, which, though unseen, yet with 
me gaze 
Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth ! 
Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays 
Above it, as to light a favorite hearth ! 
Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the West 
See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers ! 
And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast 
Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers ! 
Bear witness with me in my song of praise, 
And tell the world that, since the world began, 
No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays, 
Or given a home to man : 

But these are charms already widely blown! 
His be the meed whose pencil's trace 
Hath touched our very swamps with grace. 
And round whose tuneful way 
All Southern laurels bloom; 
The Poet of "The W^oodlands," unto whom 
Alike are known 

The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone, 
And the soft west wind's sighs; 
But who shall utter all the debt, 
O Land wherein all powers are met 
That bind a people's heart, 
The world doth owe thee at this day, 
And which it never can repay. 



\ 




THE COTTON 'BO 1.1.— Concluded 



YET scarcely deigns to own ! 
Where sleeps the poet w^ho shall fitly sing 
The source wherefrom doth spring 
That mighty commerce which, confined 
To the mean channels of no selfish mart, 
Goes out to every shore 
Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with 

ships 
That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips 
In alien lands ; 

Joins with a delicate web remotest strands; 
And gladdening rich and poor. 
Doth gild Parisian domes, 

Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes, 
And only bounds its blessings by mankind ! 
In offices like these, thy mission lies. 
My Country ! and it shall not end 
As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend 
In blue above thee; though thy foes be hard 
And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard 
Thy hearth-stones as a bulwark; make thee 

great 
In white and bloodless state; 
And haply, as the years increase — 
Still working through its humbler reach 
With that large wisdom which the ages teach — 
Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace ! 




Verses from Christmas 





Peace in the quiet dales, 


Made 


rankly fertile by the blood of men. 


Peace 


in the woodland, and the lonely glen. 




Peace in the peopled vales ! 




Peace in the crowded town. 


Peace 


in a thousand fields of waving grain, 


Peace 


in the highway and the flowery lane, 




Peace on the wind-swept down ! 




Peace on the farthest seas. 


Peace 


in our sheltered bays and ample streams, 


Peace wheresoe'er our starry garland gleams, 




And peace in every breeze ! 




Peace on the whirring marts. 


Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter 




roams. 


Peace, 


God of Peace! peace, peace, in all our 




homes. 




And peace in all our hearts ! 




— By Henry 'Timrod. 



